Written by

Cameron Davis

“History is governed by those overarching movements that give shape and meaning to life by relating the human venture to larger destinies of the universe. Creating such a movement might be called the Great Work of a people. The Great Work now, as we move into a new millennium, is to carry out the transition from a period of human devastation of the Earth to a period when humans would be present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner. ... Such a transition has no historical parallel since the geobiological transition that took place 67 million years ago when the period of the dinosaurs was terminated and a new biological age began.”

-Thomas Berry, The Great Work

Each day calls us to change inwardly and outwardly in order to meet the challenges of our times. Future generations, if they are here to look back, will understand this to be a significant moment in the planet’s history, when we learned to live “present to the planet in a mutually beneficial manner.”

Despite our mental distractions, knowledge of Earth’s compromise and in turn our own interdependent compromise is always present at the edges of our psyches, insisting awareness. Global climate change alone has us on a clock demanding us to generate our best solutions and to do so now, catalyzing our very evolution as a species.

I believe the arts play a role in this transition, as can all disciplines, practices and endeavors when orienting us toward compassion for Earth and the community of life. This challenge-opportunity is not for the faint of heart, and I daily experience equal parts faint and faith. I am as often paralyzed in the studio as I am actively doing something, racked by the questions: “What now, what best, what could make a difference?”

I believe it is in coming together in communities of all sorts — thinkers, feelers, makers, doers, lovers, seekers, celebrators and innovators — that we summon our greatest intellect, creativity and joy, loosening the paralysis, providing synergistic actions. And yes, joy, because if you turn down the volume on our news habits and tune into tracking sustainability initiatives around the globe, you will notice the most extraordinary phenomena occurring, right here, right now, that stirs excitement in the possibility of “making it” (surviving).

Paul Hawken tracks this phenomena in his book “Blessed Unrest” in what he calls “the largest social movement in all of human history,” which has “coherent, organic, self-organized congregations involving tens of millions of people dedicated to change,” a movement filled with what he calls “narratives of imagination and conviction. ”

So what might be the unique contributions of artists to Hawken’s congregations: these initiatives, communities and aggregates of apparently discrete yet actually coherent efforts?

For starters, artists tend to be nonlinear thinkers. Artists both reflect and occupy the margins of culture, and, like ecosystems, change happens in the creativity of these transition zones. For this reason, esteemed places such as MIT make it a practice to include artists on their teams of scientists.

An example of artist-scientist teaming is evidenced in the growing segment of artists known as ecoartists and ecoventionists, who collaborate with architects, city planners and communities to create large public works that aesthetically restore water or remediate damaged habitats. But not to imply that conventional art media and practices should be left out. They too are part of the solution for a sustainable future.

For one, the arts enliven the senses and pull us from our rational thinking and virtual inventions back into the sensuous world of touch, movement, taste, aroma, sound, color, curvature and texture. How else can we even notice Earth’s compromise without flexing this capacity to notice the sensuous world we live in? Out of our noticing comes understanding and even action.

Bill McKibben, in his essay “What the Warming World Needs Now is Art Sweet Art,” argues for the necessity of art in creating meaning in light of global climate change. “Art, like religion,” he writes, “is one of the ways we digest what is happening to us, make the sense out of it that proceeds to action. Otherwise, the only role left to us — noble, but also enraging in its impotence — is simply to pay witness.”

In fact the arts often anticipate understanding, where artists and viewers alike grapple with something sensed but not yet fully comprehended. This cognitive delay is a valuable pattern interrupt. In lives bombarded with the violence of busyness, overwhelming amounts of information and impossibly complex national and global challenges, the arts can offer healing pause and moments of beauty.

And though my field of the visual arts mostly has supplanted beauty with “inquiry” (mind/intellect), I remain interested in beauty’s ability to open the heart, inviting relationship with the present moment. It is in this paradoxical territory of the infinitely spacious “now” that we each connect with our uniquely defined conceptions of grace, and in so doing tap into our purpose, energy and courage required as we collectively roll up our sleeves to accomplish the greatest work of our time.

Cameron Davis of Charlotte is a painter and full-time lecturer with the University of Vermont’s Department of Art and Art History. Davis also teaches Environmental Art through UVM’s Environmental Program. Contact Cameron at cdavis@uvm.edu, and visit www.camidavis.com for more information.